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Teachers strike driving wedge through Strongsville (gallery)

Signs, signs...

The rift played out in a flower bed surrounding the gazebo at Strongsville Commons March 8, as a group of people with signs not supportive of the teachers stood in front, holding them high. It wasn't long before teachers and their supporters stepped in front of them to try to put their signs in front of the other group's signs.
(Photo by CORY SHAFFER, SUN NEWS)

That’s when hundreds of striking teachers from Strongsville, along with teachers from other districts like Brunswick, Brecksville-Broadview Heights and Cleveland, gathered to march in solidarity from Center Middle School to Strongsville Commons to hear former governor Ted Strickland speak.

But across the street, a group of about 15 parents and students gathered with a different message.

“There’s a lot of bad behavior and bullying going on right now, and I feel like the parents need to speak,” said Laura Phillips, Strongsville High School’s cheer leading adviser. “In today’s economy, people should be happy to have a job, period. Teachers need to get back to work because we need some normalcy in this town.”

Much like the five lanes of Pearl Road separated the rallying teachers and the parents, the teachers strike has exposed a rift in the city and pitted students, parents, neighbors, teachers and administrators against each other.

And Phillips said there’s one group getting left behind during the strike.

The parents – who were hoisting signs reading everything from “Kids come first” to “Break the SEA” – were joined by a few students who were equally fed up with the strike.

“I have lost all respect for my teachers because they abandoned us,” said Alyssa Szitasi, a sophomore at Strongsville High School. “They teach us that we should not give into peer pressure and not to bully, and they are bullying all the subs who are trying to help us.”

Once the strike is over, Szitasi said it could be hard for her and some other students to take their teachers seriously.

“If I were to get in trouble for talking during class, I have this to hold in their face,” Szitasi said.

While Szitasi was speaking, a man driving by rolled his window down and told the parents, whom he had mistaken for teachers, to “get a real job” before swearing at them.

In 2011, two other political rallies were held at Strongsville Commons – rallies against Gov. John Kasich’s attempt to curtail public employee collective bargaining rights, known as Senate Bill 5 and later as Issue 2 as a ballot referendum.

The last time the board of education tried to put new money for salaries and benefits on the ballot, 80 percent of voters rejected a 6.9-mill operating levy in August 2011.

Speaking at the March 8 rally, Strickland said support for public education is dwindling, as Kasich and the Republican-led state legislature expands voucher programs for parents to take their children to charter and private schools.

“There is a drawing back on the part of a lot of people in the support of our schools,” he said. “And that’s detrimental to all of us...it’s harmful to our state, to our economy, to our communities. It’s harmful to us as a people.”

But some people, like 20-year-old Alyssa Moran, who graduated from Strongsville High School in 2011 and now runs cross country at the University of Evansville in Indiana, said the strike is failing to win support of many parents.

“From talking to parents, all I hear about is how upset parents are that they don’t think (the teachers) are acting like adults,” Moran said.

Moran said it was “disheartening and sad” to come home from spring break and see her former teachers – many of whom she said she still respects – on strike. She also wasn't happy to get yelled at by picketing teachers when she tried to drop off her little brother’s lunch.

“I know they probably have reasons for what they’re doing, but I wish they would be more peaceful about it,” she said. “It’s hard to say that I’m really proud of what’s going on here.”

And the rift will continue this week, as a Facebook group claiming to be made up of "parents, residents, taxpayers and otherwise concerned citizens" who do not support the teachers will hold a rally of their own at Strongsville Commons from 3-7 p.m. March 15.

That's one day after a scheduled student rally at 7 p.m. March 14 at the school's administration office.

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